The present invention relates generally to a method of processing fabric or textile.
For the cleaning of fabric articles, consumers traditionally have used conventional aqueous immersive wash laundry cleaning or dry cleaning. Conventional laundry cleaning is carried out with relatively large amounts of water, typically in a washing machine at the consumer's home, or in a dedicated place such as a coin laundry. As discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,691,536, although washing machines and laundry detergents have become quite sophisticated, the conventional laundry process still exposes the fabric articles to a risk of dye transfer and shrinkage.
Dry cleaning processes typically rely on non-aqueous solvents for cleaning. By avoiding water these processes minimize the risk of shrinkage and wrinkling. The need for handling and recovering large amounts of solvents make these dry cleaning processes unsuitable for use in the consumer's home. The need for dedicated dry cleaning operations makes this form of cleaning inconvenient and expensive for the consumer. More recently, dry cleaning processes have been developed which make use of compressed gases, such as supercritical carbon dioxide, as a dry cleaning medium. Unfortunately these processes have many shortcomings, for example they require very high pressure equipment. Other dry cleaning processes have recently been described which make use of nonsolvents such as perfluorobutylamine. These also have multiple disadvantages, for example the nonsolvent fluid cannot adequately dissolve body soils and is expensive.
Recently, advances in textile technology have resulted in improved fabrics and textiles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,821,936 discloses that silver-containing inorganic microbiocides can be utilized as antimicrobial agents on and within a plethora of different substrates and surfaces. In particular, such microbiocides have been adapted for incorporation within melt spun synthetic fibers in order to provide certain fabrics which selectively and inherently exhibit antimicrobial characteristics. Furthermore, attempts have been made to apply such specific microbiocides on the surfaces of fabrics and yarns with little success from a durability standpoint. A topical treatment with such compounds has never been successfully applied as a durable finish or coating on a fabric or yarn substrate. Although such silver-based agents provide excellent, durable, antimicrobial properties, to date such is the sole manner available within the prior art of providing a long-lasting, wash-resistant, silver-based antimicrobial textile. However, such melt spun fibers are expensive to make due to the large amount of silver-based compound required to provide sufficient antimicrobial activity in relation to the migratory characteristics of such a compound within the fiber itself to its surface. A topical coating is also desirable for textile and film applications, particularly after finishing of the target fabric or film. Such a topical procedure permits treatment of a fabric's individual fibers prior to or after weaving, knitting, and the like, in order to provide greater versatility to the target yarn without altering its physical characteristics. Such a coating, however, must prove to be wash durable, particularly for apparel fabrics, in order to be functionally acceptable. Furthermore, in order to avoid certain problems, it is highly desirable for such a metallized treatment to be electrically non-conductive on the target fabric, yarn, and/or film surface. The '936 patent applies a treatment with silver ions, particularly as constituents of inorganic metal salts or zeolites in the presence of a resin binder, either as a silver-ion overcoat or as a component of a dye bath mixture admixed with the silver-ion antimicrobial compound.
United States Patent Application 20040142168 discloses fibers, and fabrics produced from the fibers, are made water repellent, fire-retardant and/or thermally insulating by filling void spaces in the fibers and/or fabrics with a powdered material. When the powder is sufficiently finely divided, it clings to the fabric's fibers and to itself, resisting the tendency to be removed from the fabric.